The current state of boxing as of this March 4th is such that little known fresh cruiser champ, Tony Bellew, fights celebrity heavyweight David Haye in London not for a title, but rather for oodles of pounds sterling after staging a feud. Saul Alvarez already notched one big money celebrity bout against Amir Khan and going for his 2nd straight against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, likely the biggest fight this year as far as financial numbers go. Meanwhile, Manny Pacquiao ran a twitter poll that overwhelmingly picked Khan as his next opponent, so actually the fighters are bringing the people the fights they want to see and thereby raising the stakes for all fighters. Can their light in the loafer promoters, broadcasters, and boxing commissions get their acts together to start making regular, compelling, fairly officiated fights?

Recent history, the only way we can judge our own era, suggests probably not if the powers that be can continue to make their money wagering on limited matchmaking and orchestrated results.

In the meantime, New York boriquas will doubtless show up in force given the Puerto Rican genealogy of Philly born and bred Garcia, and of course boxing hard cores will watch across the country. Thurman deserves kudos for taking this fight in the Garcia back yard so to speak, but will the public at large be watching? I hear this is only the 3rd time in history that two undefeated prime age welters are fighting to unify the title, yet there is no buzz to this fight because both are Al Haymon fighters having been kept out of the glaring limelight of any potential losses so they could be kept propped up for a potential TUE 49-0 fight. With that horse having bolted the stable for his umpteenth retirement, this fight represents their consolation tussle.

The two previous undefeated unifications were 1985’s Donald Curry vs Milton McCrory, not a big fight per say, but they split $1.5 million which was great pay for two good fighters lacking extra public appeal. Then the mega 1997 Oscar De La Hoya vs Felix Trinidad unification that guaranteed Oscar $21 million and Tito $8.5 million with $71 million of PPVs they each got a piece off. Boxing killed off those days after their major league fraud of 2015, so this fight to be closer to Curry/McCrory given it’s supposed to be on free TV, CBS they say.

The fighters have gotten in on the numbers game now with Thurman wishing for 6 million viewers and Garcia for 10 million. Wishful thinking for sure when today 3 million would be considered outstanding, but when Canelo fought the unknown British Liam Smith in Cowboy Stadium, over 50,000 fans packed the stadium and this was a PPV fight. Over 17 million in Mexico saw that fight broadcast over their own free broadcast networks, and Mexico no way close in population to the 300+ million of the US. Those numbers tell us just how far boxing has dropped as a credible sport in the US.

I gather the numbers will fill us in days after the dust settles, but for now I’m picking Thurman in a fight that could be dramatic or a stinker depending on how Thurman moves. He’s much more versatile with his footwork and faster with his fists than the plodding Garcia who is something of a one trick pony, but then again, a one trick punch is all a fighter needs in boxing, but what if nobody showed up to witness it?

Damned if I or anyone knows what Saul Alvarez and Golden Boy are doing any more other than seeking to challenge the 154 lb WBO British champ Liam Smith on Mexican Independence Weekend, this Saturday, September 17th at Cowboy AT&T Stadium, aka Jerry World.

Only 0.00001% or less of the American population might even know who Beefy is, yet that lack of recognition doesn’t appear to be an obstacle to the anticipated near sellout of Jerry World, aka Cowboy stadium by crazed fans wanting to get in on a Canelo title fight according to Mr. Cowboy, Jerry Jones. Jerry says he’ll make his money on the popcorn sales, and of course Jerry knows more ways to Jimmy crack pop corn than anyone in boxing.

To cut to the chase, basically Beefy is a huge powerful guy as you can see from the prefight announcement publicity pictures of the two out of training in street clothes where Canelo is likely at 180 lbs. That must make Beefy near 200 lbs, and neither he or Canelo are looking fat, meaning a 26 lb weight loss for Canelo and a 46 lb weight loss for Beefy to make the 154 limit, absolutely astonishing as well as dangerous in an already dangerous combat sport.

Canelo vs Beefy

Sadly, for whatever reasons which may have to do with building up the Canelo fan base even further with two British type fights in a row, such are the current shenanigans in use to avoid the seemingly big money Gennady Golovkin fight that gets put off for the 3rd time. That fight has supposedly been pushed back to 2017, but who can know these days of hard times for boxing that sees Oscar De La Hoya looking to save and rebuild his company after the razing by Al Haymon and Richard Schaefer.

And now in a luverly bit of English irony, we had Golovkin traveling overseas to Merry Olde England to battle welter champ Kell Brook the week before this fight, by easy as pie knockout of course, so by the end of September, there should be plenty of British interest whenever the belated Canelo/Golovkin bout gets made. Maybe that was the plan all along, and it sure sounds goofy, but perhaps hidden economic concerns are driving these actions. A civil lawsuit had previously been filed against Canelo and Goldenboy concerning a contract with All Star Boxing that Canelo is alleged to have been under when signed by Goldenboy. Right after the Khan fight when Golovkin negotiations seem all but done, that civil case was heard and ruled upon in Florida.

All Star Boxing won a judgement against Canelo’s contract in spite of the ruling they had no contract, so of course Canelo has to appeal the $8.5 million in damages. Immediately all talk of the Golovkin fight from Golden Boy ceased. Maybe they don’t want to risk a big fight until their appeal is heard. May also be gold in them Brit hills with Smith and Canelo both a family of boxers in the same general weight classes, so they could have a pretty lucrative family tourney together.

At any rate, Smith, who oddly seems to be prematurely graying at age 28, is undefeated and ranked like most Canelo opponents, 8th by Ring and 16th by boxrec. The original idea was to set up Canelo for Billy Joe Saunders WBO belt by having him defend it on the undercard, but this is boxing so back stabbers change the landscape daily. Saunders pulled out of the card, but the good news seems to be Golovkin working in cohoots to build up his share of the British market. However, we must also remember that Leoffler and Golovkin turned their backs and walked out of the arena after Canelo invited them into the ring after dispatching Khan. Not a very sporting gesture to promote their fight.

Then there is always the spector of Haymon settling Golden Boy’s $300 million lawsuit against him that might grease the path for Floyd Mayweather Jr coming out of retirement to exploit another PPV. Canelo can add the 154 WBO title to his Ring middleweight belt as incentive on either side of the 154-160 divide for another megafight. Sad to say that makes far more money than the Golovkin fight, so logically, who could blame Canelo from keeping lucrative options open in these uncertain times for both Canelo and Golden Boy?

Nonetheless, we the unwashed masses do understand this is a dying professional sport that needs to take full advantage of any revenues generated, but at some point, like right about now, any of the fractional remaining good will that boxing may have had with fans has edged over into the red side of the ledger. The only way to rebuild boxing is do what the UFC did, that is to make compelling fights every fight cycle and build up fan base with easy to access terrestrial over the air networks and regular subscription cable channels.

And more importantly regarding the biggest current star in the sport, Oscar needs to stop trying to hammer the 26 year old Canelo like a square peg into the round PPV hole. Boxing has managed to effectively neuter their most lucrative business model from sheer greed in 2015 that has caused a serious backlash against PPVs and boxing in general. They might can pack Cowboy Stadium with favorable ticket prices, but this is not a traditional PPV fight, not even close. The resultant PPV numbers will only make boxing and Canelo(That would be Canyellow to his new detractors) look even worse, but of course boxing has too often proven to be irredeemably shameless, so it won’t matter to them since they don’t have to answer to anyone but themselves.

As to the fight, technically Beefy has 8 consecutive knockouts going into it albeit vastly inferior local competition. The best of those fighters was ranked 51st in the boxrec middleweight rankings a couple of weeks ago, and from there fighter rankings quickly digress, so Canelo with a huge advantage of being forged in the high heat of better competition and big favorite.

Stylistically, I’ve never seen Beefy fight, but he’s reputed to be an aggressive boxer type, so I suspect it will be bruising encounter between the two. Those Brits happen to have the most titleholders of any nation in the world now, so sneer at them at your own bloody risk.

The Skinny: Top Rank Boxing through the direction of former US Department of Justice Attorney and long time boxing promoter, Bob Arum, filed a $100 million lawsuit last year in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on the basis of Al Haymon’s monopolistic PBC series that violated federal antitrust laws and the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act. Haymon, financed through an investment hedge fund, basically bought out most all the boxing programing of the television networks, in effect leaving the rest of boxing promoters pretty much high and dry in making their own TV deals. Golden Boy Promotions was the first to file suit that is still pending for a much greater sum due to greater damages, a staggering $300 million.

The Blow by Blow

It seems Haymon recently settled with Arum out of court a couple of weeks ago according to latest media releases, but what this means for boxing’s shaky future is unknown. Boxing futures today as seen by young kids and their parents are pretty much a no go investment, this after a long storied era in the US where boxing was the “go to” sport and part of the amateur athletic competition of higher education along side baseball, football, ect. That status started dying somewhere between the 1950s and 60s when boxing finally started falling out of favor with the public due to the long time mob influence in pro boxing and general exploitation of fighters. In other words, the educated classes no longer saw a future need for boxing with it’s subsequent punch drunkeness, so they largely abandoned it.

Needless to say, this recent settlement sees the litigants sworn to silence regarding the terms, but I’d guess Arum netted $20-30 million along with in number of concessions regarding the way boxing business will go forward.

The much bigger hurdle for Haymon is still in the queue, and it’s a doozy with Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy still waiting for his pound of flesh after Haymon colluded with former Golden Boy CEO, Richard Schaefer, to gut the company from within, taking away most all his fighters. Schaefer has settled with GB out of court already, so now it’s just Haymon still swimming in shark infested waters as GB and Haymon’s investment fund are looking for compensatory justice in the civil courts.

Boxing will survive no doubt, but it’s just a matter to what degree. It would seemingly be in it’s twilight years by the large decline in the numbers of participants, both amateur and pro, but that could change with a better, more productive business model that wasn’t filled with so much skulduggery…

Roughly equivalent to a Boeing 747 crashing into our rooftops, Golden Boy Promotions dropped a big video from the infinite internet cloud in the sky upon boxing this Tuesday by announcing the inexplicable, Canelo vs Amir Khan fighting May 7th in Las Vegas in a venue to be determined, likely the newly constructed T-Mobile Arena. And yes Virginia, this will be Canelo’s first title defense of his WBC title he won over Miguel Cotto at the end of the year as well as his magic 5th 155 lb catchweight fight, now officially known as the Caneloweight class. Who ever said there was no Santa Claus in May?

Big Stars can do such things, and yupsir, slobbering yelps, squawks, squeaks, and pulpy profanities exploded when antisocial media misanthropes responded in collective kneejerk fashion as brain cells shortcircuited and neurons took to spontaneous combustion, all part of the orchestration of the unwashed rubes in advance.

I agree completely, most of us are disappointed, but me thinks this will slowly grow on folks as they consider the alternatives. First off, Canelo has history of fighting opponents associated with TUE who clearly ducked Khan after a well publicised promise to fight him, so here we are with Canelo and Gennedy Golovkin needing full in bouts before kicking off their fall fistic classic that everyone is salivating over. Canelo makes more money for this fight, thus claiming an even bigger % of the Golovkin purse when they do fight and the beleaguered Khan gets yet one more crack at the big time.

We need to take a full view of the heritage and critical habits of boxing to appreciate this development. If you go to the boxrec middleweight rankings link below, it sure looks like kiddies playing hopscotch on the gravestones of great middle champs and contenders of the past. Boxing is currently at it’s lowest ebb ever in the US. There is nobody of note save a few prime middles locked up with Al Haymon, a complete nonstarter in the Khan negotiations as Oscar De La Hoya asserted that made this fight possible. Welters moving up to middle for title shots are as common as any other kind of fight in boxing history, but there are few moderns understanding boxing history much less knowing much about it. Perhaps they’ll be better educated after this bout when it becomes part of their historical memory.

Photos can give an idea of size even in this example where the 29 year old Khan is slightly in front of the 25 year old Canelo, giving Khan more size than in a perfect side by side shot, probably the intent of the photographer. That’s a big fist he sports, certainly nothing to sneeze at. Don’t know what his traditional fight night weights at welter were, but I’m guessing somewhere in the high 150s, so he has 3 months to pack on some additional size and strength, no biggie as clearly like most prime aged fighters he’s been starving down to make weight and most certainly walks around at more than the 155 lb contract weight for the fight.

Golovkin and Canelo are expected to win these spring bouts, so then what a perfect time to transform the congenial Canelo into boxing’s bad guy that everyone wants to see beat down. Not many big PPVs left in boxing these days, so isolated promoters like Oscar really need to scramble to reclaim market share from Golden Boy’s heyday before the Schaefer/Haymon meltdown that left GB impoverished in talent. Gonna be an interesting year as new talent attempts to fill in for the retiring generation of great fighters.

How boxing stuff works: Half a decade later after the fight has lost all primacy from when it was first scheduled back in March 13th, 2010. The Hayman/Golden Boy News of the Ring World orifices immediately gushed forth in gratuitous greed over the stupendous money the freshly minted Manny Pacquiao vs Floyd Mayweather event will generate for boxing’s trickledown economy. The event is ominously scheduled at the MGM Floyd for the Cinco de Mayo Mexican holiday, May 2nd.

Or at least that’s the new schedule, of what, version 4.0 of the fight that never was that insiders in the know have previously provided us. As the great humorist Will Rogers was often want to remind his audience, “I only know what I read in the papers.” As that applies here, there are an endless barrage of projected fights and cancellations that boxing undergoes every year as we, the unwashed, non-insider rubes are left to muse over the reasons for these scattershot mispronouncements. There is almost nothing in the queue to replace the current approaching age 40 fighters, Ring and Boxrec P4P rated:

1. Floyd Mayweather

2. Wlad Klitschko

3. Manny Pacquiao

All are the biggest purse generators of their generation. There is nobody in the waiting to replace them save possibly the 24 year old Canelo Alvarez who barely has any more opponents to fight, even if he ups to the middleweight division.

Assuming the face value in this instance of what the boxing media is telling us, the sheer unmitigated greed of boxing stands out like a grotesquely ugly edifice, a monumental gravestone to a sport dying on the vine thanks a lack of promotional foresight these past 20 years. When the fight was first proposed both fighters were in their primes, but now Floyd will be a shopworn 38 and Manny 36, and Manny can’t even be said to be a full time fighter since being elected to the Filipino congress some 5 years ago.

The fight would have sold itself back then it was so hot and provided a tremendous boost to the ever dwindling competitive profile of boxing, but now the fight has regressed to another dreary, climate controlled, small hall, canned Floyd fight, his 11th straight such fight in 8 years now at inflated PPV prices, $90-100 for this dumbed down version of what could have been a Fight of the Millennium. Make no mistake, the original outdoor, multicasino supported spectacle with specially built grandstands holding 40,000 rabid fans as envisioned by Bob Arum would have made the fabled, frenzied Ali/Frazier Fight of the Century in 1971 look like a church social.

The Best Evah in Caricature

Arum’s vision for Floyd was always too much, hence their long played out acrimonious divorce, but now Floyd has the last word, or does he? Even a dumbed down fight of this magnitude will have a huge undercard that takes place before official ring hostilities begin. The undercard in no particular order:

Promoters- Interlopers Oscar de la Hoya and Floyd Mayweather allied with stealth bunkered promoter Al Hayman and Richard Schaefer vs HOF legend Bob Arum who made Oscar and Floyd the huge names they became by savvy development. On paper Arum looks to be the B side promoter for the first time in many decades, but make no mistake, the wily Arum knows where the dead bodies are buried and where the hidden buttons are and when to push them. There was speculation that he influenced the initial losing split decision to Timothy Bradley so as to make Pacquiao seem more vulnerable, thus making Floyd brave enough to cross that terrible risk threshold for the big reward. It didn’t work and then Manny suffered a legit setback with the KO loss to Juan Manuel Marquez which pushed the fight further back. My speculation is that all those Macao shows Arum has been putting on has given him cozy contacts with various big Macao players who greased the skids with “the means” to make this fight even more financially lucrative than the Floyd side, but we’ll likely never know anymore than the officially released purse numbers, gate, and PPV numbers.

Venue-MGM Floyd vs Macao- As international gamblers flock to these gambling meccas to indulge their most depraved perversions and braggadocio, it’s foretelling to the future of boxing how the gambling action is likely to be bigger in Macao than in Vegas where the fight actually takes place, a preview of future Asian/USA political developments.

Trainers vs Trainer- Floyd Mayweather Sr and Roger Mayweather, after previously running scared from the specter of Freddie Roach, a future HOFer and one of the best in history, are now forced to man up in the pressers against a little guy who still battles for his life everyday because of his Parkinsons. Freddie goes in as favorite having already beaten Floyd Sr when Manny knocked out Ricky Hatton in a spectacular fight.

Showtime vs HBO- The true neverending cable story, so call this a baited breath draw as competing hot gaseous announcers blow out enough noxious vapors out their shorts to greatly accelerate global warming to a critical state, perhaps asphyxiating a few tiny nations.

Anti-social misanthrope vs anti-social misanthrope- Turning the internet forums a dribbling stinking brown with some of the nastiest stuff ever seen emanating from where the sun don’t shine.

Floyd opens as a slight favorite with the bookies, but Manny is currently running away with the Hayman/Golden Boy News of the Ring World poll where Manny is favored by either 40.52% to win by KO or 23.98% to win by decision in 8631 votes, so obviously things ain’t all what they seem in this mega money bout.

Their previous Cinco de Mayo dustup at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas produced such an unexpected spectacle of Marcos Maidana unloading his arsenal on Floyd Mayweather frozen on the ropes that the suits look to roll their loaded dice again with more of the same. Mayweather has adopted a new moniker of Mayhem, presumably the first shot of the payback he expects to extract from Chino this next Mexican Independence Day weekend, Saturday, September 13th.

It must be said that Mayweather absorbed the kind of beating that few thought he would ever take again after Jose Luis Castillo savaged him in their first go round. Looking back over his career, Mayweather has suffered only one recorded knockdown, perhaps more remarkable than his undefeated record that has taken on a canned quality these past 7 years at his personal mint, the MGM Grand in Vegas. Then again, another look reveals that he never faced any prime slugger types after moving up from lightweight until just this year, so he was quite fortunate in his matchmaking.

Combined with the mighty push and pull of his manager Al Haymon, he had the power to threaten to cancel the first fight against Maidana when Team Mayweather wouldn’t approve Maidana’s custom Mexican Everlast boxing gloves and then turned down the NSAC approved Everlast replacements. The big money backing Mayweather is claimed to have finally put up the funds to pay Chino another couple of million more on top of his 1.5 million dollar purse to wear some Mayweather approved pillows so the promotion wouldn’t go bust with a cancelled main event.

The GloveGate Affair

Hmmm, faced with a fight cancellation of his biggest fight and largest purse ever or to more than double his net take for punching with pillows, well now, it’s easy to see how a po’boy from Argentina was gonna swing on this and who wouldn’t?

The finances and organization of this fight were supposed to be quite different this time around after long time Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer and Floyd Mayweather announced their acrimonious departure from GB. Yet after playing Barclays in Brooklyn off the MGM Grand in Vegas, Mayweather decided to eat the lucrative crow and crawled back to Golden Boy as he’s done in the past for more of the same. His word has never been his bond, money is his bondage. Could it also be that Schaefer has reset in Haymon’s underground Vegas bunker to again pull the strings of the finances for this fight on a contract basis now?

Subterfuge may rule the day in any Mayweather promotion, but years from now after the fetid stains of marketing greed will have washed away, it will become more apparent just how financially orchestrated these many years at the MGM have been for Mayweather. Nine fights over 7 years starting with a highly disputed split decision over Oscar de la Hoya before ending with two consecutive majority wins over Canelo Alvarez and Marcos Maidana paying him out some $250 million, that’s a quarter billion in shorthand folks. The fight numbers and tepid fights vs the revenue numbers could never add up in previous generations, but then again this ain’t your great grandpappy’s generation with the US gu’mint printing money like there’s no tomorrow.

So, how does a rare Mayweather rematch go?

***I was finished with this part of the preview by the time the Nevada State Athletic Commission surprisingly announced the referee and judges well in advance, so I decided to leave it unedited as it shows the canned predictability of how making a Mayweather fight has been. Kenny Bayless was selected as ref with Dave Moretti of Las Vegas, Guido Cavalleri of Italy and John McKaie of New York the judges. Cavalleri is the wild card here***

***Maidana got a surprisingly equitable performance out of referee Tony Weeks who’s only sin was allowing Mayweather to keep Maidana locked up for extra precious seconds after ordering and attempting to break them. Weeks may never be invited back for another Mayweather fight, so look for his longtime concierge, Kenny Bayless, or alternately Robert Byrd, currently being groomed for the position after the infamous Joe Cortez retired. To wit: “But the referee had a bad night last time. We forgive him but this is going to be a much cleaner fight. None of those dirty rabbit punches or elbows.”

Mayweather’s preferred judges are Dave Moretti , Jerry Roth, and Burt A. Clements based on their wide Mayweather scoring and substantial appearances in all of his consecutive 7 years of MGM Grand events, so look for at least one or perhaps even all for his strategically important 10th straight Mexican Holiday MGM Grand fight also.***

In the first Maidana fight Mayweather was easily trapped on the ropes much like the Jose Luis Castillo and Oscar De La Hoya fights where he was faced with bigger, stronger opponents who went hard after him. Maidana is not naturally bigger or stronger than him though, but he is a prime aged unrepentant slugger who got on top early and smothered him in brutalizing punches that likely took away his legs early and fuzzed his thinking. I’d imagine Floyd won’t risk being “Bronerized” again and goes on the run for ye aulde stink and move routine similar to his Robert Guerrero style. Guerrero had beaten up his pal Andre Berto in a toe to toe classic that Mayweather wisely didn’t fancy to reprise.

Mayweather made a big stink about Maidana’s “dirty” fighting which is really rich given the dirty history of his own fights with regards to razor sharp elbows, hitting on the break and sucker punching moves that he has always been allowed. Against Canelo in the early going he introduced the patented Bernard Hopkins upperbutt and a rather amateurish form of lacing Canelo’s eye that resulted in Canelo being warned by Kenny Bayless, the typical fight template in the early rounds that keeps Mayweather opponents off balance as they have to worry more about the ref instead of fighting Mayweather. Vic Drakulich recently DQed Diego Chavez as he was lacing the face of Brandon Rios in another Vegas fight if you want to see how stuff like that can work out in a more equitable environment.

With Mayweather’s style of twisting into pretzel like forms and often compressing himself illegally below the beltline, it was inevitable that some of Maidana’s voluminous punches would stray low or behind the noggin since that’s where the target areas relocated for him to wing his punches at. Mayweather sometimes illegally shows his back when boxing defensively and turns his noggin away, so no wonder he got a few rabbits thrown his way. There were no point deductions for the infractions that Mayweather claims, so Tony Weeks amazingly gave Maidana a green light to go after Mayweather, after all, Maidana was considered a lowly 12-1 underdog and stood no chance according to Haymon News of the Ring World experts and the Mayweather nation. More interesting was the utter lack of protest after the draw was scored by a new Mayweather judge picked to replace the previous C.J. Ross draw score, Michael Pernick.

So for the 2nd fight in a row the judges failed to see the full measure of the wondrous wizardry of Floyd Mayweather as the self emasculated Mayweather nation may be withering on his PPV vine. Drunken punch monkey stats claim they landed about the same number of punches, but it’s self evident that Maidana punches much harder than Mayweather and he was throwing hundreds more punches that were “blocked” on shoulders and arms that Mayweather was credited with good defense for, yet probably couldn’t get out of bed the next day. Mayweather was pummeled as hard as Sugar Ray Leonard was in his first loss to Roberto Duran, but that fight was held in neutral Montreal, not on Leonard’s personal playgrounds where Duran could never cop that kind of decision.

The buffet grazing herd mentality of the “fighting” press was such that precious few gave Maidana much credit at all. I’m certainly no fan of Sugar Ray Leonard, but it was easy to see the incredible talent, heart, and desire he had before his first retirement and I’ve never seen anything close to that in the Mayweather career. My fighters of that era were Roberto Duran, Tommy Hearns, and most especially the no quarter asked nor given Marvin Hagler who saved his savagery for inside the ring and civilized demeaner for outside the ring. I could witness awe inspiring greatness in the making in that era that I simply fail to see in Mayweather fights. We can however count the staggering sums of money he has claimed with a style that even his substantial fan base admit is boring, eking out spare tap-tap hometown scored incremental rounds one extra tap per round to his benefit.

Save for the substantial endurance needed to throw so many power punches, their last fight was one of the easiest Maidana fights for him as far as punishment taken and he will have an extra week to train this go round. Additionally he has sacked his physical trainer, Alex Ariza who’s philosophy of artificially swelling up his fighters after the weigh in with huge weight gains may have compromised the stamina of the small framed Maidana who is no great shakes as a physical specimen.

Ripped & Ready vs Rounded & Rowdy

Sure, Mayweather has a superior defense and few look good against him because of his spoiling instincts and painstaking matchmaking, but conversely he could never win these hometown tap-tap type fights in Thailand where the 19 year old Manny Pacquiao utterly pulverized the highly regarded Chatchai Sasakul for his first title. Wladimir Klitschko only recently traveled to what is a literally the Ukrainian “enemy state” of Russia amidst their tragic border war to take on their undefeated champion Alexander Povetkin, an Olympic superheavyweight gold medalist who had never once been knocked off his feet, ama or pros. Wladimir blasted poor Povetkin to the canvas 4x and otherwise pounded and threw him around and down in a near shutout. Roy Jones may not have been an international fighter in his prime, but he fought brilliantly across the country in a host of venues, often dominating in his opponent’s home environs, but how quickly folks have forgotten that Roy Jones truly was self promoted and really did call his own shots to take his show to the people.

That Mayweather has offered to match Maidana’s entire purse in a bet over who wins the rematch is the last refuge of the unrepentant scoundrel by asking others to risk everything while he risks very little in return. He has always had unprecedented money and power backing his entire pro career, so we’ll see soon enough what transpires in this supposed Golden Boy reorganization that has already reverted in part back to the same ol’, same ol’ as before. Maidana trainer Robert Garcia called his bluff when he offered back a “winner take all” wager, a much riskier proposition that Mayweather ignored and rightly so if he wants his guaranteed purse.

Oh, and let us not forget the divine ruling from above passed on down to us peons by WBC El Presidente For Life Sulaiman Jr. The WBC welterweight and junior middleweight belts will be on the line as well as the WBA Superduper Welter title. There are no words to describe such infinite largess though perhaps the endowment of the WBC interim heavyweight belt might be a start, but let us the fans not get too greedy over these goodies that have been provided.

Whoops, almost slipped by that Mayweather has now been spotted working out with ex-Pacquiao and ex-Maidana trainer Alex Ariza who seems to be available these days as both mercenary trainer and informer as he floats on a fight to fight basis as his destiny intermingles with that of Mayweather’s.

In the middle of all this internal and external chaos, Mayweather was immediately granted his Nevada’s promoter’s license upon application with no background questions about his finances, criminal record, or alleged failed drug tests if you want to see how Nevada works for him. He was even praised for being a wonderful role model, I kid you not.

I don’t make this stuff up folks, “it” happens in Nevada all the time.

And speaking of it, Mayweather sure stirred up a big pot of it when he made his drug accusations and demanded Olympic drug testing for the rest of his fights that he has never actually undergone. Nor has he or any of his team ever addressed insider allegations of his own failed drug tests nor have they addressed why his own stable of fighters have failed the standard drug tests that he wants to abolish.

Will the Floyd Mayweather Jr legacy be further feathered out as Showtime nurses him along to the Rocky record of 49-0 or will Marcos Maidana be the straw that finally breaks the Mayweather jackpot? The highly protected undefeated touted fighters of the Team Mayweather stable have recently been spectacularly knocked out left and right as signs of decline seem to be lining up in the stars in advance of the Maidana rematch.

And perhaps prophetically thus spake TBE:

“Let me step back so y’all can check my swag. The diamond Gucci belt, it’s official. The Dita glasses, it’s official. The diamonds are always flawless. The style is always flashy. Check the Forbes list. It’s all about “Money May” all day. Let me step back so y’all can check my swag. Get your cameras out and take a picture!!! This is gonna be the last time y’all see a champion like this.”

After beating “los burritos de perros” out of Alfredo Angulo and then turning Erislady Lara into the post fight presser joke, Canelo Alvarez must have liked the hearty responses to his fight performance and punchlines and now looks to add a few more combos on the Lara noggin come Saturday, July 12th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. This Canelo “event” will headline another modest Showtime Pay Per View attempt as his Golden Boy combine moves to build him into boxing’s replacement PPV cash cow after the recent Mayweather exit.

The 31 year old Lara is one of the dozens “may or may not be” Golden Boy fighters who are now advised, re: managed and promoted by boxing’s stealthiest Wizard, the forever lurking behind the curtains in the dark shadows of the dimmest light, the daylight, nightlight, and always brightlight avoiding Al Haymon. The southpaw Cuban, 19-1-2, 12 KO, was a touted amateur star who managed to “defect” twice before he was able to make his pro career debut in Turkey and now has been “advised” into the interim WBA World light middleweight title whilst fighting out of the United States to the sparest acclaim imaginable.

The big shakeup at Goldenboy Promotions when honcho Richard Schaefer resigned after a long time dispute with head honcho Oscar De La Hoya and Top Rank head honcho Bob Arum will have their impact on this fight. Schaefer is closely aligned with Al Haymon and was the front and center force in getting this fight signed and off to an early promotional start. What the full repercussions of this seismic promotional upheaval and the future Golden Boy/Haymon related fights may still be unknown, but they’re out there waiting to pounce for better or worse when their time is ripe.

Canelo~Golden Boy Post Rehab~The American Dream

This will be waged as 12-round non-title bout at a “catchweight” between 153-155 pounds to give the ever growing Alvarez a chance to ease into the middleweight division as he did with his last fight against Afredo Angulo at 155 lbs. The soon to be 24 year old Alvarez eased into the junior middleweight division from the welter division in the same manner to great success, success that Lara has been desperate to trump via vehement twitter challenges that have finally brought him this fight, so what are his chances?

Truth be told, Lara’s performance against top fighters has been lucky at best. His best showing was his last against former WBA champ Austin Trout who must be wondering where it all went wrong after back to back knockdown, decision losses to Alvarez and then Lara. Before that Lara looked not long for this world after Alfredo Angulo cracked open his eggshell chin and spaghettied his drumstick pins into chicken cassiatore before being suddenly being suddenly derailed by an alien soft tissue softball popping up over his eye. There was also Lara’s weak spoiling efforts against Paul Williams where he showed he was a great fighter for 30 seconds of every round, giving away the other two and a half minutes with a gold medal worthy track meet performance that had me thinking he was in the wrong sport. Then hows about his droopingly dreary drawers…err…draws against contenders Vanes Martirosyan and Carlos Molina that put him in the same class as nobody special that fewer still even care to remember him by?

There are no big money fighters available now for Alvarez in the 154 division which is currently as weak as a litter of newborn kittens, so why they are handicapping his marketability by making this a PPV probably has it’s roots in unreasonable promotional greed. The biggest Alvarez fights may be already mapped out against newly resurgent Miguel Cotto and Manny Pacquiao now that Golden Boy looks to be working with Top Rank. Those are huge PPV numbers and fights worthy enough to draw in the general public for a spectacle, so in the interim Golden Boy needs to keep his PPV bandwagon on the move.

Lara has long fantasized about crashing their party for another chance to redeem his “American Dream” moniker, his biggest fight ever to prove he can do more than just pose as a touted Cuban amateur talent, but he has to improve substantially if he is ever to reach the potential that his few vehement fans insist on seeing in him. That’s a big unknown to be going against a professional fighter who worked his way through the boxing ranks old school Mexican style before signing with Golden Boy as an 18 year old phenom, currently 43-1-1, 31 KO, more than double the career of Lara. Two more contrasting careers and personalities cannot be be found in boxing even if their boxing instincts almost guarantee a fairly dull bout of natural counterpunchers attempting to counter-counterpunch each other on top of Lara also being runner.

Scratch Alvarez hard enough though and his caged Mexican fighter instincts get unleashed, something the rather meek and mild Lara is not likely to arouse unless he unveils a more aggressive style that might make this PPV worthy. Given the recent failures of his fellow defector Cubanos Odlanier Solis and Yuri Gamboa, the pressure is building on Lara like never before, so how will he respond?

Another intriguing question: How many strings does Al Haymon have left to pull after the big shakeup at Golden Boy?

When Alvarez went against Mayweather, De La Hoya cracked under the heat and ducked out on his fighter to check into isolated drug rehab, thus leaving Canelo without protection from the officiating manipulations of the sharks who run boxing. While few are praying for Lara to be the new hope in boxing, this fight has decision stamped all over it and boxing has lost faith with the public over their Three Blind Mice white stick scoring system. We can only await awash in baited breath for their next preordained travesty.

The supporting undercard is also rather meek and mild with Juanma Lopez being the single unrepentant slugger of any note on the promotion. No spectacular Mexican holiday fireworks extravaganza this, so best be caught up on your sleep and modest in your weekend beverage intake to perhaps appreciate the finer technical maneuverings that might reveal themselves in the course of their deliberate dickerings over who shall be the finest boxer on the night…oh mirror, mirror in the ring, who’s the prettiest in his bling?

Boxing officially enters a summer “dead zone” with the recent completion of Miguel Cotto’s signature win over Sergio Martinez. Certainly the hard core fan can still see plenty of good fights featuring top fighters most every week, but there are no more “Big” Fights” until July. That’s when Canelo Alvarez fights Erislady Lara in an exploratory Vegas MGM Grand PPV and Tyson Fury rematches Derek Chisora in a big stadium fight to be held in Manchester, England. Often the general fan’s schedule is unable to make time for these summertime blues “dead zone” fights, and I won’t be writing about them, so the question gets begged before the stifling summer ennui sets in: What of Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer’s recent adversarial departure from his long time gig at Golden Boy? Alvarez vs Lara was his last creation as it were and he won’t be around to massage the final details.

Oh for sure, the “boxing expert” world is agaga over what the impact will be not to mention all the anti-social media monkeys over flowing their shorts with competing befouled projectile offerings of what the former Swiss Banker Schaefer and the rest of his boxing crew does next.

Myself? Neither boxing expert, boxing insider, nor fly on the wall of Richard Schaefer am I, but I can guarantee a big shakeup in the boxing world that’s been a long time coming. This arcane 17th century sport looks to be setting up a scramble for big international dollars as boxing is being developed in the Asian markets as it wanes in the American market. The European market seems to be holding with the Brits and Germans hanging in there as Russia is gaining traction to pull even with them.

So Golden Boy is conclusively split up with Floyd Mayweather Jr also announcing he’s exiting the ranks. And mum’s always the password at the Al Haymon underground boxing works buried somewhere deep down in a former Howard Hughes bunker in Las Vegas, still stocked with thousands of rows of kleenex box slippers ready to be shuffled around in me thinks. Schaefer has given no indication of what capacity he might continue in boxing, but if he does he will have to start from scratch and get to working with as many promoters not named Golden Boy or Top Rank if he is to continue his adversarial relations with Oscar de la Hoya and Bob Arum even as he is still a shareholder in Golden Boy.

Bad Marriage

And where do the Showtime contractual obligations land?

Another sticking point is the many Golden Boy fighters also signed with Al Haymon. Word is many of those fighters don’t actually have a contract with Golden Boy and may no longer be promoted by them, not the least of which is Floyd Mayweather who has his big Mexican Holiday set for his 10th consecutive appearance at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas for September 13th. That would be vs TBA, of course with a TBA vs TBA supporting undercard. Sticky Mayweather negotiations are typically settled at the last minute, but now they may be stickier and more unsettled than usual. His promotional company supposedly lacks a license to officially do business, but no problems when he was aligned with Golden Boy. Just slap his logo up on all the promotional banners and and reap the extra profits.

The Logo

Somebody somewhere running some connected responsible promotional entity has to come up with those monstrous 30 and 40 million dollar guarantees that Mayweather has enjoyed, but by whom and by what means will that be accomplished?

Stay tuned for the gold rush crush as everyone and his aunt and sister stake a claim as lawsuits whizz by like bullets in an OK Corral Shootout. It may not be pretty, but sure as shootin’, “It’s Boxing!”

Or more cruelly entitled, Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It’s Off to Jail He Goes, But Not Before Passing GO to Collect The Ransom of a Prince.

Floyd Mayweather Jr will presumably settle his career Top Rank feud against Miguel Cotto who defends his WBA juniormiddle belt against Mayweather at the MGM Grand on May 5th in Las Vegas.

Or will Mayweather really fight for the WBA belt?

5 WBC Divisions

The WBC recently announced their “Diamond” belt will be at stake, a prestige that nobody in boxing has yet figured out the meaning of in an era of super, regular, interim, emeritus, in recess champions promoted by the various ABC boxing orgs. Mayweather briefly held the WBC juniormiddle belt he won in a disputed split against Oscar de la Hoya, but he retired in a huff against boxing and HBO rather than defend it. It remains to be seen if Mayweather bothers to pay the sanctioning fee for a WBA title, something he refused to do for the Shane Mosley fight. Mayweather has traditionally been a very devout WBC fighter to the exclusion of the other major titles in his five divisions.

At Golden Boy Promotions, the inmates do indeed seem to run the place. The culprits of last year’s Golden Boy promoted all time fiascos, Bernard Hopkins and Floyd Mayweather, will be fighting back to back with the Hopkins rematching his histrionic nonperformance against Chad Dawson the week prior to this promotion.

Golden Boy Promotions used to be a strong, up and coming promotional team promoting all manner of televised high action Latino prospects on the Texas border, Arizona, and California, really any modest population center with a significant Mexican population. GBP was laying the groundwork for a boxing revival and seemed poised to compete against the current megalith and main rival, the Bob Arum run Top Rank. Alas, as in any Shakespearean tragedy featuring heroic figures, Numero Uno Golden Boy had a myriad of substance abuse, personal, and assorted legal issues that have taken a toll on GBP quality control. Now at least one press release for this fight has Golden Boy listed 2nd between Mayweather and Cotto’s promotional companies, ie:

Noteworthy is that Mayweather’s postponed prison incarceration begins June 1st afterthe fight, so this may be Mayweather’s first and only bout for the year, a typical year for Mayweather. On paper and by styles we have what could prove to be a pretty fair scrap unless Mayweather reprises his previous French farce against Victor Ortiz, the details being too sordid to bother recounting.

Miguel Cotto entered into the fraying Mayweather fight picture with the blessings of Bob Arum after the Pacquiao negotiations went nowhere. Mayweather has long said that he would never fight an Arum fighter, but Cotto finally came to the end of his long term Arum contract with rematch against Margarito. There could be some snafus in the process before they ever step into the ring with all the fingers in the pie and who knows if the purses will be guaranteed.

Not many are aware of the Golden Boy ties with Miguel Cotto’s older brother, confusingly named Jose Miguel Cotto. The elder Cotto provided quality contender foil for Golden Boy fighters Saul Alvarez and Pauli Malignaggi in recent years, so the skids to the Mayweather fight were greased for Miguel the younger Cotto well in advance, quite fortuitous given the short window of time Mayweather had before beginning his postponed incarceration.

The fight is unusual in that it breaks the long string of pure Golden Boy fighters that Mayweather has restricted himself to over the past 6 years, but it’s still being held in the same MGM Grand venue he seems dependent on for good luck and good results ever since he squeaked the Oscar De La Hoya split decision so many moons ago.

Mayweather is also looking to capitalize on the Manny Pacquiao phenomenon by using Pacquiao’s name to promote Mayweather’s bouts again, by making more baseless accusations of cheating against Pacquiao at the kickoff presser announcing this fight. Needless to say, the civil suit filed by Pacquiao against Mayweather is ongoing even as Oscar de la Hoya has already apologized and seemingly settled any differences amicably with Pacquiao and Arum.

Much ado is being made of the VADA, Voluntary Anti-Doping Association “Olympic Style Drug Testing” for the fight by some of the press who haven’t a clue about the nasty little details of the various drug testing orgs or Olympic drug testing in general whose parameters are constantly in flux with every latest developments in the losing “war on drugs.”

VADA is headed by Dr. Margaret Goodman, a longtime Vegas ringside insider as the former ring physician for the Nevada State Athletic Commission. She offers up her opinions freely, seemingly not liking the violent physics of boxing while offering up various studies regarding concussions, eye injuries, ect that the average fan is not interested in. I can’t help but wonder where she was during the Referee Joe Cortez led disaster that let Francisco Lorenzo sprawled unattended on the canvas leaking out of his hamburgered face as the various “ring officials” held something akin to a circle of jerks for many critical minutes as they dickered away.

VADA is the latest new fee taken out of the promotional pie on top of the dozens of older ones and is hardly Olympic style testing as the boxing press may claim, not that Olympic style testing has ever done shinola about cleaning up the drug scandals of their athletes. One thing not likely to change is Mayweather’s alleged dependence upon cortisone shots for his hands, something the Nevada commish allows.

Some in boxing also claim that the Pacquiao fight failed over Mayweather’s insistance on Olympic style testing. Fact is the issue was thrown up at the last minute after contract details were agreed upon and were being negotiated before Pacquiao had to secure the emergency replacement to insure his strict fight schedule and payday could be met.

True Olympic drug testing can never be negotiated by the athletes!

It was Mayweather who backed out of his own date with a new date and new dancing partner, admitted drug cheat Shane Mosley. He said he only wants to clean up boxing, so he followed that with his choreographed staged fiasco against Victor Ortiz, so maybe he’s bringing in wrestling and opera fight choreography to cleanup the violent physics of competitive boxing that Dr Goodman is up in arms against.

Nonetheless, Miguel Cotto is an honorable substitute as the epitome of a tough, well schooled warrior who has never laid down for anyone. Cynics aplenty may quote Mayweather’s previous observation that he would never fight Manny Pacquiao’s leftovers and critics galore may claim that Cotto is well past his best days if not a shot fighter, but they won’t be the ones raking in the cash for a fight many fans agree makes sense given the circumstances.

Now, it is true that Cotto took a career beating at the hands of Antonio Margarito in a storied fight that matches well with the most legendary fights in history, but Cotto also doles out some of the most vicious beatings of his era, the kind that look like his poor opponents look like they were run over by a Sherman tank. Moreover, he’s a full time fighter, 10 full blooded bouts compared to the 3.25 bouts Mayweather has had since his first of several “retirements” after the De La Hoya bout.

Cotto vs Mosley

Common opponents at welter are wins for both fighters, Cotto with a knockout of Zab Judah and decision over Shane Mosley, and Mayweather with decisions over both.

Since his loss to Pacquiao in a fight that he accounted himself well in, Cotto has comeback with a new sporty shotgun style jab that should serve him against Mayweather. He has experimented with both Manny Steward and Pedro Diaz as his trainers, but I hear tell he will be with Diaz for this. I’m not sure Diaz can protect Cotto against the hometown hijinks that have gone on in previous Mayweather fights anytime Joe Cortez is the ref, and Lord have mercy if crazy Uncle Roger Mayweather storms the ring again to attack the fighters and officials.

Steward has the gravitas to squelch any monkey business he sees going against Cotto. Diaz may be a fine up and coming trainer, but presumably Cotto knows he won’t be the “home” fighter this time as he is accustomed, so the expectation is that he will fight accordingly.

Mayweather looks to use his longtime trainer, his uncle Roger Mayweather, so no experimentation there. It remains to be seen if and how Mayweather will pack on the extra pounds for this division. He weighed 150 for the De La Hoya challenge and took a fair share of punishment early as the bigger De La Hoya punched him onto his back foot into a defensive shell against the ropes before Mayweather staged a comeback against the fading champion.

I’d imagine the Mayweather gameplan would be to use his defensive skills to maneuver Cotto around the ring to tire him while marking him up with some select sharp shooting much like the Juan Manuel Marquez fight went. Mayweather showed little defensive prowess against Ortiz though and ate some big shots as he mugged for the cameras, a bad sign going into a Cotto fight. His best performance ever was against Shane Mosley, but only the last 10 rounds of that fight. Mosley won the first two and was on the verge of a knockout before Mayweather recovered his senses, so I have to wonder what happens when his opponent won’t run out of steam and confidence as Mosley seemed to do?

Cotto may no longer be the undefeated brute running over fighters as he used to, but he’s still a youngish 31 years compared to Mayweathers 35 years who lately has been various stages of retirement and celebrity preening. Moreover, Cotto has never been in a bad fight and knows a win splashes him into the big bucks pool with Manny and Floyd and makes the Pacquiao rematch more attractive. His performance against the slick undefeated Paulie Malignaggi showed how he deals with fast defensive spoilers and of course every Mayweather opponent probably reviews the Jose Luis Castillo beating of Mayweather many, many, moons ago that no fighter since has been able to duplicate.

The De La Hoya fight turned Mayweather into a household name, but he’s lacked consistency in his comebacks. He may have won all the bouts, but he need the suspicious involvement of referee Joe Cortez in two of them for his only knockouts of the past 7 years. He boxed pretty much in reverse against the hell bent Marquez, yet stood his ground against the bigger and stronger Mosley and Ortiz, so go figure.

Cotto at 154 is stronger than Mosley at 147 and not likely to go into a shell after 2 good rounds like Mosley. It’s Mayweather’s speed and baffling boxing style that will be the tough mountain for Cotto to climb. Anything is possible, but Mayweather figures to be the big favorite for obvious reasons.

Mayweather is almost guaranteed to win the Pay Per View sweepstakes against Pacquiao this time around since Cotto is a much bigger name and PPV star compared to the little known undefeated P4P phenom that Pacquiao is fighting, Timothy Bradley. Nonetheless, Pacquiao continues to shut out Mayweather on the P4P ratings with more than double the P4P fights, 7-1-1, and more knockouts, 5 KO, than Mayweather has P4P fights, currently at 4-0, 2 KO.

The undercard is interesting with the 4th copromotion of Canelo Alvarez on a Mayweather card, this time against Shane Mosley. There is talk of a match between them if they win their respective bouts, or if not, perhaps a Cotto/Alvarez superfight, ya never know how these things turn out.

It’s really amazing how big Alvarez has gotten both physically and promotionally from the 18 year old cinnamon tinged Mexican welterweight making his cautious American debut against Larry Mosley, a close relative to Shane Mosley. He now sports a bull neck and weighed in at 165 lbs for the 30 day prefight mandatory, so my guess is that he’s gotten too big and risky for Mayweather, but just about right for Chavez Junior who struggles to make the middleweight limit and last defended his middleweight title at an amazing 181 lbs come fight night.

Ripped for R.I.P. Shane

Mosley was heavily criticized for fading against Mayweather and Pacquiao, but those are the best fighters he ever faced and he was past his prime even if he had a brief moment against Mayweather. I figure he’s in for a shellacking against a growing boy who is a much better boxer than he’s is often credited in spite of his #2 junior middleweight ratings in Ring and Boxrec and #14 P4P in Boxrec.

So, there it is. It’s all up to the fighters now as the countdown has begun.

Well, folks, it finally happened. The other shoe finally dropped in regards to Floyd Mayweather Jr‘s plea arrangement on multiple charges of domestic abuse when the Clark County judge in Nevada sentenced him to 90 days detention at the Clark County Detention Center.

Home Sweet Home

The full sentence includes 3 suspended months which could be reinstated if Mayweather cannot mind his Ps and Qs during lockup. Part of the plea deal was the dropping of felony battery charges which could carry many extra years of imprisonment if reinstated. You can catch up to more of the history of his charges here:

Mayweather had recently reserved a May 5th date next year at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas for his next bout, but that could well be “money” flushed down the drain given the length of the sentence. A desirable high profile fight is not likely be secured on such uncertain notice, not that his last alleged fight against Victor Ortiz was such a fight.

Mayweather will be 35 years old at the time of his release, traditionally past prime for most fighters and athletes, but regardless of the plethora of Mayweather personal flaws, he tends to stay in some semblance of training between fights. Many fighters blow up their weights and have to constantly be trained down to make their division limits, so perhaps traditional age limitations cannot be placed on him.

The question is whether or not this represents a long drawn out process of the wheels coming off of his career during his “retirement and comeback” phase of his career. His bitter retirement after the controversial Oscar de la Hoya supermatch that smashed all PPV records for a single fight burned a lot of boxing bridges, but all was forgiven during his comeback fights that generated more interest than all of his entire previous career.

Vs JJMarquez

Though his comebacks have included Ricky Hatton, Juan Manuel Marquez, and Shane Mosley in high profile matches, the Philippine Pacific Cyclone storming out of Manilla named Manny Pacquiao has sucked all the wind out of his sails and left the well accomplished Mayweather short on the awards, accolades, and rankings as the last decade closed out.

You can read about their compelling parallel career developments through the decade here:

Needless to say, the fabled on again-off again super matchup against Manny Pacquiao seems to be no more than schoolboy fantasy at this point. The 33 year old Pacquiao has been on more than a tear through boxing’s ranks, he finally got elected to his congressional district after years of hard campaigning all while logging an incredible number of miles back and forth in international air travel as he pursued his remarkable fight career.

At some point, there has to be a toll on his boxing and life. His overriding ambition has always been to be elected to the Philippine Presidency, so the Floyd Mayweather Jr super fight is fading fast as his next career priority. He was supposed to be retired by now, but the money on the table is simply too big to walk away from, so he has amazingly carried on two very demanding careers.

If Mayweather does keep the May 5th date intact and is released in time for a reasonable training camp, there will be no shortage of lesser contenders and champs willing to strike at a low ebb in his career.

His last fight with Victor Ortiz may well to be the farce of the new millennium. The only thing missing was Big Show storming the ring to pile drive the lot of them during their frequent nuzzles as they exchanged sweet nothings. Nobody in boxing was calling for the Ortiz fight, and Mayweather even denied he was fighting Ortiz.

Could Ortiz be the last fight of his career?

Prior to that, he backed off the date of the showdown he requested against Manny Pacquiao and had to be forced into the ring against Shane Mosley he was so reluctant to fight again, but he desperately needed the money after the government put a lien on his Marquez purse for back taxes. Mike Tyson started exhibiting the same traits as his career wound down, and not surprisingly Tyson seems to have become a favored member of Mayweather’s large entourage.

It’s a long month before Floyd Mayweather is to report to serve his sentence, so his family and friends can only hope he doesn’t land in more hot water during that time. Then he has to play his get out of jail card according to the terms set by the prosecution and detention officials.

The glitter of Las Vegas will be a bit grittier and grimier in the immediate term as history and boxing anxiously await the final return of Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Edited Update:

Mayweather has been granted a temporary stay to fulfil May 5th contractual agreements. The moveable date of incarceration begins June 1st. More details here: